Motivation: Many students who may struggle to write or feel unmotivated to write on their own will find it exciting to write for a global audience.
Feedback: One of the best ways to teach students constructive criticism or give them examples of good/poor writing is to have them read and critique each other's work!
Easy access to student writing: If you feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with your students' journal writing, have them write a blog post. Then you can easily access all of your students' work in one place from home and from school.
Sharing successes: Blogging with your students opens up your classroom walls. Parents can now get a glimpse of what is going on in the classroom as well as a snapshot of what their child is learning in class.
How can I start a blog? You can use Kidblog or Edublogs or even the blogging feature in Schoology to get your students started. Decide whether you want the posts to be public (Kidblog or Edublogs) or viewable only by their peers (Schoology).
What to blog about? Students can blog about classroom events, about a book they are reading, about a math concept they are learning. They can create stories or even make their own mathematical word problems for their classmates to figure out.
How do I manage student blogs? You can have a designated blogger of the week or you can have students rotate through and type up their post as a center. Have them hand write it first to save time. You can also just maintain a class blog as a teacher to broadcast what your students are doing. Offer 'guest blogger' posts by students when they do extraordinary work or you want to share student voices.
Spreading the Word To get as much readership as possible for your student/class blog, check out the Comments4Kids blog. There are also lots of ideas there for teaching your students how to leave and respond to comments.
Interested in starting your own blog to post reflections and successes or a class blog to share what your class is up to? Let the Tech Team know and we'll help get you started! Some good places to start: Blogger, Kidblog.
Why blog with your students?
Motivation: Many students who may struggle to write or feel unmotivated to write on their own will find it exciting to write for a global audience.
Feedback: One of the best ways to teach students constructive criticism or give them examples of good/poor writing is to have them read and critique each other's work!
Easy access to student writing: If you feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with your students' journal writing, have them write a blog post. Then you can easily access all of your students' work in one place from home and from school.
Sharing successes: Blogging with your students opens up your classroom walls. Parents can now get a glimpse of what is going on in the classroom as well as a snapshot of what their child is learning in class.
How can I start a blog?
You can use Kidblog or Edublogs or even the blogging feature in Schoology to get your students started. Decide whether you want the posts to be public (Kidblog or Edublogs) or viewable only by their peers (Schoology).
What to blog about?
Students can blog about classroom events, about a book they are reading, about a math concept they are learning. They can create stories or even make their own mathematical word problems for their classmates to figure out.
Check out Linda Yollis' awesome classroom blog
How do I manage student blogs?
You can have a designated blogger of the week or you can have students rotate through and type up their post as a center. Have them hand write it first to save time. You can also just maintain a class blog as a teacher to broadcast what your students are doing. Offer 'guest blogger' posts by students when they do extraordinary work or you want to share student voices.
See this great example of organizing and managing student blogs:
Spreading the Word
To get as much readership as possible for your student/class blog, check out the Comments4Kids blog. There are also lots of ideas there for teaching your students how to leave and respond to comments.
Interested in starting your own blog to post reflections and successes or a class blog to share what your class is up to? Let the Tech Team know and we'll help get you started! Some good places to start: Blogger, Kidblog.